2023, the construction of infrastructure projects in many places in China was centralized, coupled with the high rate of capital in place, the initial investment was gradually converted into physical workload, and the construction activity increased significantly. In terms of real estate, although the sales side has improved slightly under the policy support, the problem of capital shortage in the industry has not been significantly improved, most housing enterprises still mainly digest stock projects, and investment activities are still limited. According to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, the cumulative growth rate of investment in infrastructure (excluding electricity) reached 8.8% in January-March 2023, up 0.3 percentage points from the same period in 2022. Meanwhile, the investment in real estate development in China fell by 5.8% year-on-year, and the growth rate fell by 6.5 percentage points compared with the same period in 2022.
Figure 1: Infrastructure investment maintained a medium-high growth rate, while real estate investment declined year-on-year (%)
Data source: Cement Big Data (https://data.ccement.com/)